Voice of San Francisco
Training against Jew hatred in the SFUSD with John Rothmann
This is John Rothman and you are listening to the voice of San Francisco. A great controversy has emerged in the San Francisco Unified School District. What schools should be closed? There are 11 schools on the chopping block, two that are going to have mergers and the superintendent of public instruction, Matt Wayne, says that he is going to meet with each school community on the list to discuss their future. We know the district is in trouble. And we know that Matt Wayne is going to try to immediately rate the problem. But let's be clear. People are loyal to their schools. They want their schools to survive. And in the case of a school like Sutra in the Richmond district, they district is proposing assigning Sutra students to Lafayette, Alamo or the Chinese Immersion School for the Cantonese by literacy program. All of these are legitimate options. But I understand the passion for saving a school. We've talked about it before. I've been devoted to my schools over the years. No matter what their names, the schools I went to mean something to me. Madison is now Claire Lowiam Falls to lower campus. And boy, oh boy, we work hard to help them every single day. And of course, Washington High School, which I've been devoted to. Well, virtually my entire adult life. We are devoted to our schools. And I understand the passion of parents to keep schools open. But I want to be crystal clear about this. So superintendent has to be listened to. We have to think about what we're doing and when the district makes the decision and that final vote is to be taken in mid-December. We're going to have to come together to work to save our schools. So I'm going to be listening and the superintendent's going to be listening. And hopefully the people of San Francisco are going to be listening. But there is another subject relative to the schools that I want to talk about. To the San Francisco Unified School District, ask the American Jewish Committee, a venerable Jewish organization to do a teacher training this last week around the rise of Jew hatred, which has emerged against students and teachers. It is a serious matter. And yet there was a dissent and that is that the people who opposed the American Jewish Committee, maybe because the term Jewish was in their title, decided that they should have an alternative training. And what we know of the alternative training and we've read several different accounts now is they were polar opposites. One of the things that the American Jewish Committee made clear is that anti-Zionism represents a real threat to Jews. The problem with the alternative training is they don't consider anti-Zionism to be a problem at all. I understand the passions about what's happening in the Middle East. But I also believe that we should be concentrating on making students feel secure. We know that there are students and teachers and administrators who feel uneasy about what has been happening in the demonstrations against Israel. Now, let me point out to you, the trainings were not supposed to deal with the question of Israel. They were supposed to deal with the question of Jews and how Jews feel and what Jews are going through. And to paint a history of Jews, I would suggest a history of Jews as a civilization, history, language, literature, art form, religion, philosophy and land, all encompassing a civilization of Jews. Now, people are going to say to me, but John is in Zionism a partisan political issue. The answer is no. Zionism should not be a partisan political issue because what Zionism affirms is the right of Israel to exist as a nation. The minute anti-Zionism is used, there is a denial of the right of Israel as a nation and the right of Jews to self-determination. Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Now, why do I point this out because the teachers union here in San Francisco has taken the position and, according to their statements, that the American Jewish committee training may not be credible. Therefore, this alternative training should be permitted. The district has to take a stand, a clear stand, because Jews are feeling insecure about what this district feels and what it teaches. I say this to you respectfully, but this is something that concerns me. No matter where we go, we hear the cries against Israel. And may I say that Israel is a state like any other. There is only one nation in the world whose very existence is threatened every single day. That is Israel. No other nation is challenged in that way. But what is important to note is that Jews are feeling on the defensive. Rabbi Ryan Bauer, the lead rabbi at Temple Emmanuel of San Francisco in the body of his sermon mentioned the insecurity in the San Francisco Unified School District. This is something that is not abstract for Jews in the San Francisco area. And this is not just a SFUSD. This, by the way, embodies many other districts who are going through the same thing. I want to be crystal clear about this. No student should be threatened. No faculty members should be threatened. And certainly Jews shouldn't be threatened along with anybody else. And what I failed to understand is the attack on the American Jewish Committee. One of the most distinguished Jewish organizations in the country, certainly attuned to the problems. If there is a question of African Americans, we turn to the NAACP. If there is a question about Asian Americans, we can turn to organizations like Chinese for affirmative action and others that have been in the forefront of battling anti-Asian discrimination. So why should there be resistance to the American Jewish Committee? Because the American Jewish Committee supports Israel's right to exist as a nation. And that, my friends, is what gets these people upset because they don't want Israel to exist as a nation. So here's my message to the San Francisco Unified School District. Thank you for standing firm and having the American Jewish Committee do the training. But I want to make clear that the alternative training was not a real training. And that's the key, either we are consistent or not. And so the union needs to take a hard look at itself because, frankly, support for the American Jewish Committee training session made a lot of sense to me and to the district and to the superintendent. The school district faces a lot of problems, a lot of issues. But this question of students feeling safe must be addressed. And thank heaven, the school district has begun that process in dealing with Jew hatred in our own San Francisco Unified School District. I am John Rothman, and this is the Voice of San Francisco.